War Quotes by Philip Roth

8 War quotes by Philip Roth

Roth’s eight observations on war weave his characteristic irony with sharp social critique. The quotes deliver a literary, thought‑provoking glimpse into the human cost of battle.

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“In May of 1945, only a few weeks after the fighting had ended in Europe, I was rotated back to the States,…

Philip Roth

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“Also, she had been secretary to the soccer coach, an office pretty much without laurels in our own time, but apparently the…

Philip Roth

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“But I never did escape from this plot-driven world into a more congenial, subtly probable, innerly propelled narrative of my own devising--didn't…

Philip Roth

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Unless one is inordinately fond of subordination, one is always at war.

Philip Roth

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“War with Canada was far less of an enigma to me than what Aunt Evelyn was going to use for a toilet…

Philip Roth

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World War III will be triggered off not by suppressed nationalists seeking political independence, as happened the first time around when the…

Philip Roth

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“Though I'd never forgotten Alan, I hadn't uttered his name aloud in the many years since he'd died, back in that decade…

Philip Roth

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Old age isn't a battle; old age is a massacre.

Philip Roth

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“The old intergenerational give-and-take of the country-that-used-to-be, when everyone knew his role and took the rules dead seriously, the acculturating back-and-forth that all of…

Philip Roth

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You be greater than your feelings. I don't demand this of you - life does. Otherwise you'll be washed away by feelings. You'll be…

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Nothing bad can happen to a writer. Everything is material.

Philip Roth

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The only way to have a funeral is to invite everyone who ever knew the person and just wait for the accident to happen-somebody…

Philip Roth

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To become a celebrity is to become a brand name. There is Ivory Soap, Rice Krispies, and Philip Roth. Ivory is the soap that…

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“There are no reasons. She is obliged to be as she is. We all are. Reasons are in books.”

Philip Roth

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“As far as I can see there is no conquering or exorcising the past with words - words born either of imagination or forthrightness.”

Philip Roth

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The book really comes to life in the rewriting.

Philip Roth

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“What is astonishing is that we, who had no idea how anything was going to turn out, now know exactly what happened.”

Philip Roth

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“Good Christ, a Jewish man with parents alive is a fifteen-year-old boy, and will remain a fifteen-year-old boy till they die!”

Philip Roth

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I am the Raskolnikov of jerking off – the sticky evidence is everywhere!

Philip Roth

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“Better for real things to be uncontrollable, better for one's life to be undecipherable and intellectually impenetrable than to attempt to make casual sense…

Philip Roth